Angola LNG maintenance ‘pushed back’

08 September 2013, News Wires – Angola’s new LNG plant has pushed back the start of a 53-day maintenance period to the middle of this month after engineers discovered small gas leaks in onshore pipelines last month, according to a report.

The $10 billion plant was initially due to shut on 18 August, but the discovery of two leaking wells led site managers to delay maintenance until the problem was traced and fixed, a site engineer told Reuters.

The start-up of Angola’s first LNG project suffered long delays as the plant was beset by various technical problems, including a fire in April that occurred just hours before production was to begin.

The Chevron-operated project eventually shippedits first LNG cargo to Brazil in June, 18 months behind schedule.

Maintenance has now been pushed back until 13 September, the site engineer told the news wire, while a second engineer at the plant confirmed that maintenance was scheduled to start in mid-September.

“It will be 53 days from production to production after the plant shuts … the maintenance is there to replace the strainers and remove limescale and conduct a performance acceptance test,” the first source told Reuters.

Officials at Angola LNG could not be reached to comment, the news wire said.

As part of maintenance, engineering firm Bechtel must ensure that the plant passes a performance test, hitting certain milestones such as running close to its maximum capacity.

Chevron holds a 36.4% stake in the project and Angola state oil company Sonangol 22.8%, while Total, BP and ENI each hold 13.6%.